BEFORE SOCRATES: ESSENTIAL QUOTES FROM EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS

Some of the more famous quotes of philosophers that predate Socrates.

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THALES OF MILETUS

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"All things are full of gods."

"Time is the wisest of all things that are; for it brings everything to light."

"A multitude of words is no proof of a prudent mind."

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"Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing."

"Place is the greatest thing, as it contains all things."

"Nothing is more active than thought, for it travels over the universe, and nothing is stronger than necessity for all must submit to it.”

"Hope is the only good that is common to all men; those who have nothing else possess hope still."

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"If there is neither excessive wealth nor immoderate poverty in a nation, then justice may be said to prevail."

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ANAXIMANDER

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"The indefinite is divine, for it is immortal and imperishable."

"Immortal and indestructible, surrounds everything and destroys everything."

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"There are many worlds and many systems of Universes that exist all at the same time, all of them perishable."

"The Earth is cylindrical, three times as wide as it is deep, and only the upper part is inhabited. But this Earth is isolated in space, and the sky is a complete sphere in the center of which is located, unsupported, our cylinder, the Earth, situated at an equal distance from all the points of the sky."

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"There cannot be a single, simple body which is infinite, either, as some hold, one distinct from the elements, which they then derive from it, nor without this qualification. For there are some who make this (i.e. a body distinct from the elements) the infinite, and not air or water, in order that the other things may not be destroyed by their infinity."

"All things must in equity again decline into that whence they have their origin for they must give satisfaction and atonement for injustice each in the order of time."

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ANAXIMENES

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"Air is the nearest to an immaterial thing; for since we are generated in the flow of air, it is necessary that it should be infinite and abundant, because it is never exhausted."

"Just as our soul, being air, holds us together, so do breath and air encompass the whole world."

"Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Democritus say that its [the earth's] flatness is responsible for it staying still: for it does not cut the air beneath but covers it like a lid, which flat bodies evidently do: for they are hard to move even for the winds, on account of their resistance."

"Anaximenes son of Eurystratus, of Miletus, was a pupil of Anaximander; some say he was also a pupil of Parmenides. He said that the material principle was air and the infinite; and that the stars move, not under the earth, but round it."

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PYTHAGORAS

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"The beginning is the most important part of the work."

"The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become."

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"There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres."

"Choose rather to be strong of soul than strong of body."

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"Knowledge of the mathematical arts is a great help towards the understanding of the divine order of nature."

“The universe is one, and all things are interconnected."

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"Reason is immortal, all else is mortal."

"Number rules the universe."

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"As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other."

"Silence is better than unmeaning words."

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XENOPHANES OF COLOPHON

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"The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,
While the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.
Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,
And could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape
Bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own."

"Men always makes gods in their own image."

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"The gods did not reveal, from the beginning,
All things to us, but in the course of time
Through seeking we may learn and know things better.
But as for certain truth, no man has known it,
Nor shall he know it,neither of the gods
Nor yet of all the things of which I speak.
For even if by chance he were to utter
The final truth, he would himself not know it:
For all is but a woven web of guesses"

"No man knows distinctly anything, and no man ever will.”

"If an ox could paint a picture, his god would look like an ox."

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"One must be a sage to recognize a sage."

"For all things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth."

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HERACLITUS OF EPHESUS

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"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

"The only constant is change."

"The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts."

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"To be evenminded is the greatest virtue. Wisdom is to speak the truth and act in keeping with its nature."

"The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony."

"All things are in flux; the flux is subject to a unifying measure or rational principle. This principle (logos, the hidden harmony behind all change) bound opposites together in a unified tension, which is like that of a lyre, where a stable harmonious sound emerges from the tension of the opposing forces that arise from the bow bound together by the string."

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"The sun is new each day."

"The meaning of the river flowing is not that all things are changing so that we cannot encounter them twice but that some things stay the same only by changing."

"War is the father of all and the king of all; and some he has made gods and some men, some bond and some free."

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PARMENIDES

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"We can speak and think only of what exists. And what exists is uncreated and imperishable for it is whole and unchanging and complete."

"It is the same thing that can be thought and for the sake of which the thought exists."

"Tis necessary for thee to learn all things, both the abiding essence of persuasive truth, and men's opinions in which rests no true belief."

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"Never will this prevail, that the things that are not are — bar your thought from this road of inquiry."

"Do not let habit, born from experience, force you along this road, directing aimless eye and echoing ear and tongue; but judge by reason the much contested proof which I have spoken."

"For 'to be thought' and 'to be' are the same thing."

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"Everything that exists has always existed. Nothing can come from nothing. And something that exists can not be turned into anything either."

"Let reason alone decide."

"Being alone is and nothing is altogether not."

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ZENO OF ELEA

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"If there are many things, they must be both like and unlike, but this is impossible. For neither can unlike things be like, nor like things unlike."

"If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which...?"

"If being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like."

"The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less."

"All the good are friends of one another."

Zeno is best known for his paradoxes, which aimed to show that common sense notions about motion and multiplicity lead to contradictions. His arguments had a lasting impact on philosophy and mathematics.

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EMPEDOCLES

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"God is a circle whose center is everywhere, and its circumference nowhere."

"No mortal thing has a beginning, nor does it end in death and obliteration; there is only a mixing and then separating of what was mixed, but by mortal men these processes are named 'beginnings.'"

"Many fires burn below the surface."

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"The force that unites the elements to become all things is Love, also called Aphrodite; Love brings together dissimilar elements into a unity, to become a composite thing. Love is the same force that human beings find at work in themselves whenever they feel joy, love and peace. Strife, on the other hand, is the force responsible for the dissolution of the one back into its many, the four elements of which it was composed."

"Weak and narrow are the powers implanted in the limbs of men; many the woes that fall on them and blunt the edge of thought; short is the measure of the life in death through which they toil; then are they borne away, like smoke they vanish into air, and what they dream they know is but the little each hath stumbled on in wandering about the world; yet boast they all that they have learned the whole—vain fools! for what that is, no eye hath seen, no ear hath heard, nor can it be conceived by mind of man."

"νυκτὸς ἐρεμαίης ἀλαώπιδος... Of night, the lonely, with her sightless eyes."

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ANAXAGORAS

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"Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god but a great rock and the sun a hot rock."

"Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine, were taken away."

"All other things have a portion of everything, but Mind is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing but is all alone by itself."

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"Appearances are a glimpse of the obscure."

"There is no smallest among the small and no largest among the large, but always something still smaller and something still larger."

"The descent to Hades is the same from every place."

"All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite."

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"And since the portions of the great and the small are equal in number, so too all things would be in everything. Nor is it possible that they should exist apart, but all things have a portion of everything."

"The Greeks are wrong to recognize coming into being and perishing; for nothing comes into being nor perishes, but is rather compounded or dissolved from things that are."